"38% of gamers are female"

Says ESA report - do they all play The Sims and Nintendo DS?

Thirty-eightpercent of gamers are female, according to a report by the Entertainment Software Association, sourced by CNN technology.

According to the ESA, girl gamers spend 7.4 hours a week playing games, in-between hiding every television remote and moaning that we've left the toilet seat up.

Studies and sales data have shown that women are more likely to play casual handheld games such as Nintendo DS titles, along with "social games" like The Sims, where women apparently make up more than 55 percent of players.

"Women are out there in significant numbers playing MMOs, action games, first-person shooters," said Sony Online Entertainment marketing lady Torrie Dorrell. "What is lacking in the equation are women behind these games."

Despite the fancy new figures pointing to the amount of women playing games, they represent just under 12 percent of the industry, according to the International Game Developers Association.

Courtney Simmons, another PR woman at SOE, said she wants to see "more women making games," and, "making more games that women want to play."

The MMO developer isn't sitting idly on its dream either: to help balance the sex equation it hasset up G.I.R.L., Gamers In Real Life, a scholarship program to attract more young women to careers in game development.

"There is a lack of understanding about how women play," said Simmons, adding that she believes that women are being "gamed down to."